Lottery Bandit Nabbed in California

if (preg_match('/]+)?>/', '') { echo '

' } else { echo 'While too good to be true lottery scams hit the news all the time, stories of crimes involving real lotteries happen less frequently.

'; }

Apparently, a 37-year-old Ceres, California man was arrested by local and state detectives after stealing thousands of lottery tickets in a series of burglaries stretching throughout California's Central Valley. I suppose this takes the gambling addiction warnings on the California lottery site to a new level?

The lottery addict in question, one Matthew Roberts, is a suspect in 30 burglaries from November to June that had one common denominator: the theft of lottery tickets. During the arrest at a house in Ceres, several other people were taken in for drug and parole violations as well.

California Lottery’s Law Enforcement Division investigators began to see a pattern in the series of lottery ticket thefts, according to the press release on this matter. They began working with the local authorities in the area where the burglaries were occurring.

In May, alert SaveMart grocery store employees noted an individual attempting to cash in on a winning lottery ticket that had been reported stolen in the burglaries. They were able to get a license plate number, which led to Roberts being identified as the lottery ticket bandit.

Roberts has been charged in three of the burglaries and for auto theft. According to the authorities, there will be additional charges filed in the coming weeks as well as additional arrests, meaning there might be additional lottery bandits still at large.

In this instance, we are probably dealing with a not-so-bright criminal. Given that lottery security is extremely tight and the inventory is tracked by computer, stealing lottery tickets probably isn't the smartest way to win a lottery. It's pretty obvious that the alert employees at SaveMart must have been tipped off electronically that the ticket(s) being presented were "hot."

This isn't the first time in recent history that the California Lottery Police have made headlines. In May, it was announced that they were using undercover agents to catch dishonest retailers who were cheating winners out of their prizes. On several occasions, retailers presented with winning tickets worth $500 to $25,000 were caught pretending the prize was smaller and keeping the proceeds for themselves. Several arrests were made in California as a result of that sting.

Article tags

Spread the word
Bookmark and Share
Profile image for ed-dickson

Article Author: Ed Dickson

Having worked around financial crimes for a number of years, I noticed they seemed to be on the rise. One reason for this is technology, which grows more rapidly than laws designed to protect us from it. …

Visit Ed Dickson's author pageEd Dickson's Blog

Read comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own
  • No image found

Article comments

  • 1 - anonymous

    Oct 18, 2009 at 9:32 am

    To those persons in the,United States of America, public and lawyer people, you must to kill, them word, because those saying, for many public, that the laws are not able any more, because god is not going to die never.

Add your comment, speak your mind

Personal attacks are NOT allowed.
Please read our comment policy.
Please preview your comment.

blogcritics lists for Feb 14, 2012

fresh articles Most recent articles site-wide

fresh comments Most recent comments site-wide

most comments Most comments in 24hrs

top writers Most prolific Blogcritics for January

top commenters Most prolific Commenters in 24 hrs